NEWS & DOCUMENTS

The whole world was shocked with a picture of a Syrian boy named Aylan Kurdi, only 3 years; the child died next to his brother and his mother; the only survivor of the family was his father. They came from the city of Kobane and were fleeing the atrocities of the Syrian regime of Bashar al-Assad, of the NATO bombings and the reactionary ISIS, which emerged as another force in Syria to destroy the struggle of the Syrian and Kurdish people.

For a unitary block of the left and the workers to defeat the new memorandumo

Statement by the International Workers Unity - Fourth International

On August 20 Alexis Tsipras resigned as Prime Minister of Greece, to force a call to new elections in mid-September. It is a manoeuvre that seeks to overcome the political crisis caused within Syriza by their capitulation to the Troika (IMF, European Union— UE— and the European Central Bank—ECB).

On July 5 the Greek people had said NO to a new memorandum with the troika in the referendum called by Tsipras. A few days after that vote the same Tsipras and his government ignored that outcome. They said YES to the Troika and agreed to a new memorandum which means a worse adjustment than the previous ones. A betrayal in record time.

With the Syrian people, Down with Bashar, ISIS and imperialist interventions

August 21 marks the second anniversary of the chemical slaughter which took place in Ghouta, on the outskirts of Damascus. The chemical attack of Bashar al Assad's regime killed in a matter of minutes, more than a thousand people, most of whom were women and children who were sleeping peacefully in East and West Ghouta. Like other massacres, this chemical slaughter has happened and the culprit remains unpunished.Various organizations of the Syrian and global left, which met in Istanbul in July, we call to conduct a unified day of action around the world to again repudiate that slaughter and in support of the Syrian people's resistance.

Greetings from Lucha Internacionalista, Spanish State section of the IWU-FI and from leaders of the IWU-FI

Barcelona, July 2015

To the IWL-FI

To the British section

Comrades,

We want to convey Lucha Internacionalista's condolences on the death of comrade Bill Hunter, and we request you extend it to his family, friends and comrades.

We deeply regret Bill's death, as the Trotskyist leader he was, both in the construction of the British party, and in the reconstruction of the Fourth International. We are sorry, for the workers' leader he was from his beginnings in the docks and never forgetting the class struggle or criteria.

With the people of Syria: down with Bashar, Daesh and the imperialist interventions!

Istanbul, 12nd of July 2015

In March 2011, in the midst of the revolutionary wave unfolding in the region, the masses of workers, youth and poor peasants of Syria invaded the streets against the dictatorship of Bashar al-Assad. Assad, in return, responded to these peaceful protests with fierce repression: use of live ammunition, arrests, torture, murder and the launch of explosive barrel bombs and chemical weapons against entire neighborhoods... After four years since the start of the revolution, the population of Syria has already paid a severe price for their fight for freedom: More than 300 thousand people have been killed, of whom %95 were murdered by the Assad forces. The numbers of the injured, arrested and missing are still unknown though it could be at least half a million in total. Moreover, the number of detainees is estimated to be more than 200 thousand, with the fate of most still yet to be discovered. Thousands of towns and villages have been destroyed and more than 11 million people have been forced to leave their homes, including over four million refugees who have sought safety outside the country.

The triumph of the NO in the Greek referendum by nearly 62 percent to 38 percent of the YES, was overwhelming, a great victory for the Greek workers and people. They defeated all the pressures of imperialism, of the Greek bankers and bosses and their scaremongering campaign. The dilemma is how the Syriza government will be using this popular victory. Will it take advantage of it to continue mobilising against the impositions of the Troika or will it go towards a new covenant of concessions?

The NO has not been a great political victory of the Greek people, with the NO to new agreements to continue the adjustments. There was a lot of pressure towards the YES. Several polls enlarged the YES. The reality is in plain sight. Again the Greek people expressed at the polls and in the streets their long resistance against the cuts and the memoranda of the Troika. It reaffirmed its struggle of over 30 general strikes and its turn to the left to search for a way out of poverty, mass unemployment and the looting of the country by the IMF and the European Union (EU).

The working people and youth of Greece are experiencing key moments in their struggle to come out of the constant imperialist blackmail, the blackmail by the Troika (IMF, European Union-EU and European Central Bank) which for years has been imposing packages of cuts in their wages, pensions, and privatisations and all forms of plunder of their riches. All this to pay a fraudulent and unpayable foreign debt, carried out by governments accomplices of the IMF and the international banks.

Given the new imperialist blackmail, the Syriza government has been forced to call a referendum in Greece on Sunday 5 July. The situation has reached such a point that on Tuesday the government of Syriza had to stop paying the foreign debt, an instalment of €1.6 billion. The Troika, the IMF, the bosses, the bankers and the Greek right, could not prevent the referendum and fear a triumph of the NO. All of them have set out to promote the YES to continue with the "memoranda" and cuts to the Greek people.

The blackmail on the part of the creditors/usurers, the EU and the IMF, has led SYRIZA to (temporarily?) break the so-called "negotiation" and resort to the people, asking them to reject the inhumane measures proposed. The creditors had been so far encouraged by the continuous concessions of the government and were aiming to impose upon the greek people a new shameful agreement. The measures included large primary budget surpluses, cuts of wages and pensions, irrational increases in VAT on goods consumed widely, the abolition of all tax exemptions for workers and popular layers, as well as relentless tax drainage, unreasonable increases in retirement age limits... and many more – which will only lead the greek economy and society to total disaster. And what is more, they are asking for harder and harder measures, they send ultimatums, they stomp on popular and national sovereignty, as if they are addressing a colony, in an obvious attempt to humiliate and squeeze the Greek people.

The government of Syriza, headed by Alexis Tsipras, who claims to be of the left, ended up giving in and agreeing to new adjustments against the Greek people. The left wing of Syriza came out to oppose it and denounce the pact of its government. So did other sectors of the Greek left.

By Miguel Sorans, IWU-FI, 23 June 2015

During the month of June there were decisive encounters that would put at stake whether Greece continues paying the foreign debt, with the adjustments and under the control of the Troika: IMF, European Union (EU) and European Central Bank.

Former Egyptian President Mohamed Mursi was sentenced to death on a provisional basis on 16 May by a criminal court in Cairo, Egypt. The court of appeals upheld the ruling in June. Also sentenced to capital punishment for spying were the chairman of the political arm of the Muslim Brotherhood, Saad Katatni, his vice president, Essam al-Erian, and the prominent Islamic preacher Yusuf al-Qaradawi, who was tried in absentia. Mursi was sentenced to death, along with other 105 members of the Muslim Brotherhood. Mursi and the MB leaders have received crude accusations that include a denunciation of "receiving" aid, for an alleged "flight" of Hamas and Hezbollah fighters.

These convictions are endorsed by the civil-military dictatorship of General Abdel Fattah al-Sisi, which has persecuted supporters, members and leaders of the Muslim Brotherhood. But this dictatorship not only persecutes the MB but represses strikes and all forms of youth and popular protest. Key sectors in the revolution of 2011 that overthrew the dictator Hosni Mubarak, such as the April 6 Youth Movement, have been declared illegal.